I’m not sure where to start with Captain America. There are two obvious places. First is Chris Evans. His earnest performance is unlike any other superhero movie of the last few decades (because the character is fundamentally different). Second is Joe Johnston.

I think I’ll start with Johnston.

Captain America is very well-directed. Johnston manages a wide Panavision frame, lots of huge sets (maybe most obvious homage to the films of the thirties and forties) and a bunch of actors. But because he’s utilizing so much CG, either as backdrops or special effects… it lacks distinction. If I were unfamiliar with him as a director, this film would give me no insight other than him being able.

Back to Evans. Captain America’s a tough character because Evans has to sell being a good guy all the time, even before he’s Captain America (the frail CG version of Evans is the film’s most impressive visual effect, but his performance sells it), even when he’s out of costume. Evans is able to sell him wearing the outfit. Nothing else does.

The film’s the best of the Marvel Studios releases, but still has its problems. Hugo Weaving’s villain, while well-acted, isn’t interesting enough for all the screen time he gets. The Alan Silvestri score is mediocre at best.

Oddly, I think it’ll probably get better on repeat viewings, when one can appreciate it without anticipating it.

That statement made, it’s quite good even on the first viewing. And Stanley Tucci’s phenomenal.

★★½

CREDITS

Directed by Joe Johnston; screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, based on characters created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby; director of photography, Shelly Johnson; edited by Robert Dalva and Jeffrey Ford; music by Alan Silvestri; production designer, Rick Heinrichs; produced by Kevin Feige; released by Paramount Pictures.

If someone had told me Anthony Hopkins was going to have a major role… he’s so laughably bad, it’d be funny–if the joke of The Wolfman wasn’t on me.

Universal Studios doesn’t have any comic book properties so they’re apparently going to go through their horror catalog and churn out more turds like The Wolfman. It’s supposed to be an “adult” horror movie (it’s for thirteen year old boys at best), but it’s really a hodgepodge of mediocre special effects and superhero movie stupidity (this movie wouldn’t have existed without League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or Ang Lee’s Hulk or Wolf for that matter). It reminds me of The Jackal, another terrible Universal remake.

The werewolf transformations are poor, CG-added to American Werewolf in London. Nothing more.

Actually, it starts all right–well, it starts not terrible (it rips off Bram Stoker’s Dracula a lot)–but the toilet flushes once they get to London. There’s no point to the trip except to show a CG werewolf on rooftops.

There’s some rather good acting–Emily Blunt’s way too classy for this one (the film feels less British than the original, which shouldn’t be possible). Geraldine Chaplin is good in what should have been the film’s most important role, but wasn’t.

Every change the screenwriters make from the original is awful. The cinematography’s at best pedestrian–from Shelly Johnson; Danny Elfman phones in the score. But the real disappointment is Johnston. His direction has absolutely no personality, just like the film.

ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Joe Johnston; screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self, based on a story by Curt Siodmak; director of photography, Shelly Johnson; edited by Dennis Virkler and Walter Murch; music by Danny Elfman; production designer, Rick Heinrichs; produced by Scott Stuber, Benicio Del Toro, Rick Yorn and Sean Daniel; released by Universal Pictures.

I thought I could watch Transformers 2, or whatever it’s called, but I can’t. I made it through the first one, maybe because it followed some kind of traditional narrative structure, but the second one is unbearable. It’s just incompetently told. I’ll read plot details and they seem interesting, but there’s no way I’d ever make it to see them.

Bay’s got to be the most worthless director working today. His composition is so spectacular, his editing, while frantic, at least has a rhythm his imitators don’t have, but he apparently likes the dumbest scripts and has the dumbest ideas (his director’s cut to Pearl Harbor being a testament to his needing a firm producer).

The CG is great, but who cares? As such a long-time opponent of CG, it’s interesting I’ve gotten to the point where I can respect it, but it’s gotten so blasé it’s ineffective. Sure, the Transformers transforming is lifelike and all, but there’s no wonderment to it. Bay shoots the thing like the Transformers are the scale the viewer is supposed to be accustomed to, not the people affected by the action. It makes it silly and cartoonish.

The writing is particularly awful, whether the dialogue or the plotting.

The voice acting is bad. Peter Cullen apparently hasn’t done any real acting in thirty years–sorry, cartoons don’t count–and it sounds idiotic. The trailer guy would have been better. It doesn’t help the audio mix of the voice acting is crap.

V for Vendetta is a film made by Americans about London. I mean, I can see how it’s all right, given it’s a big budget nonsense blockbuster, but there’s something so incredibly lame in the last scene of the film–I’m going to ruin it for you–the dead people, those murdered by the evil British state, are all united with the living people as the events of the film lead them into some glorious new future. Or some nonsense.

It’s obvious and lame. The scene could have been shot so it wouldn’t have been noticeable, possibly even have been subtle… instead, it’s like the end of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang but without the joke.

There’s a lot of okay stuff about the film. Natalie Portman isn’t terrible. She isn’t any good, but she isn’t terrible. Rose Byrne would have done a great job (a rewrite would have helped too). Stephen Rea and Stephen Fry are both fantastic. John Hurt is fine. Rupert Graves is good. I’m not sure why Hugo Weaving got the part of the titular character, since it’d have been a stuntman for most of it and there’s a mask and no performance, but whatever. His voice acting is clearly dubbed in, regardless of whether he had to wear a stifling outfit.

The script’s got some awful moments–as a police procedural starring Rea in the lead, it would have been great. McTeigue’s occasionally okay. The visual style is all flash, no substance.

It’s really quite bad.

ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by James McTeigue; written by Lilly and Lana Wachowski, based on the comic book by Alan Moore and David Lloyd; director of photography, Adrian Biddle; edited by Martin Walsh; music by Dario Marianelli; production designer, Owen Paterson; produced by Joel Silver, Grant Hill and Lilly and Lana Wachowski; released by Warner Bros.

I think The Matrix! Part Trois has to be better than the second one, if only because it’s not as terribly boring in its action sequences. The second one had that highway battle and it was bad and the Keanu Reeves versus a million Hugo Weavings and it was bad. Here, Keanu Reeves fights one Hugo Weaving (in an atrocious performance, it’s a shame how the sequels degraded the fine work he did in the first film) in front of a bunch of non-participating Hugo Weavings. It’s better. And it’s a huge, CG-aided flying fight scene–it’s the Superman versus Zod scene no one ever got to see.

Reeves is okay. It’s amazing how little his eyes effect his emoting when he acts. Jada Pinkett Smith is awful and as much as I appreciate the Wachowskis’ minorities inheriting the earth thing (none of the surviving principles are white), I’m pretty sure the character they have her play is just the equivalent of Will Smith’s heroic, but definitely not revolutionary or intimidating, black guy for white audiences.

Harry Lennix is bad in this one. Maybe he was bad in the second one too. I can’t remember. He’s usually good. But he’s an idiot in this one, even though he’s supposed to be smart.

I think the script probably read well. As a movie, it’s a bit of a disaster; I’ll bet the script read well.

Except for the Wizard of Oz cameo at the end, it wasn’t completely awful.

ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Written and directed by Lilly and Lana Wachowski; director of photography, Bill Pope; edited by Zach Staenberg; music by Don Davis; production designer, Owen Paterson; produced by Joel Silver; released by Warner Bros.

The Wachowskis get to do whatever they want with The Matrix Reloaded so they do this bombastic, pseudo-intellectual sequel and they’re totally bored with it. It’s very obviously not what they want to be doing with their time.

They got about as much mileage out of the Matrix as they could in the first one and putting a dream sequence into the second one doesn’t do them any favors.

This film has Harold Perrineau giving a bad performance. I didn’t even know it was possible for him to give a bad performance. He’s just terrible–he’s this useless, throwaway character.

Speaking of bad performances–Jada Pinkett Smith. I’ve seen her in something else and I was waiting for she to give one of the worst performances in film history and she certainly delivers.

The fight scenes are the boring and cartoonish. They’re not exciting. They look like a video game.

The film almost turns around at the end when it mocks the audience–the entire movie is invalidated in the last act, in a self-congratulatory way–not a fun way, but a wink wink. If the viewer is paying attention, he or she just realized the movie was a waste of time and money. But the cliffhanger ruins it. It’s cheap instead of cruel. Cruel is interesting. Cheap is predictable.

At least George Lucas is making a fortune off the toys. He cares about something. The Wachowskis don’t have a motive, artistic or commercial, for making this mess.

ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Written and directed by Lilly and Lana Wachowski; director of photography, Bill Pope; edited by Zach Staenberg; music by Don Davis; production designer, Owen Paterson; produced by Joel Silver; released by Warner Bros.

I have this vivid memory of seeing The Matrix in the theater. When the agents, dressed in their black suits, got out of the car, everyone groaned–they thought it was a Men in Black reference. Of course, the thing about The Matrix is it fakes being wholly original.

One of the nice things about being technically dynamic and full of great special effects is not having to worry about the actors much. Keanu Reeves is fine. Laurence Fishburne is pretty good. Carrie-Anne Moss’s only good scene is the one romantic one.

Hugo Weaving is great.

Joe Pantoliano is okay. Gloria Foster’s one scene is good. Marcus Chung, the biggest supporting cast member, is annoying and has some rather bad readings.

The Wachowskis composition is startling–it’s an exploration of what Panavision can do, in a way no one’s really done since Spielberg in the seventies.

Don Davis’s music is great.

I always notice it and don’t want to forget, especially now. The Matrix is unique in being a mainstream American movie where the leaders are black–Fishburne, Foster; looking at how Iron Man or Batman use their black characters, things have clearly gone downhill. Now, we have tokenism for the twenty-first century.

I haven’t seen the film in about nine years. It’s better than I remember it. Not as startling as the first viewing, but solid. The lack of plot originality isn’t an issue–it’s so well-made, not just technically, but as a communal filmgoing experience.

★★★

CREDITS

Written and directed by Lana and Lilly Wachowski; director of photography, Bill Pope; edited by Zach Staenberg; music by Don Davis; production designer, Owen Paterson; produced by Joel Silver; released by Warner Bros.